Plattsburgh Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force (USAF) Strategic Air Command (SAC) base covering 3,447 acres (13.7 km²) in the extreme northeast corner of New York, located on the western shore of Lake Champlain opposite Burlington, Vermont, in the town of Plattsburgh, New York.

Michael Phillip Anderson was a United States Air Force officer and NASA astronaut. Anderson and his six fellow crew members were killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the craft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Anderson served as the payload commander and lieutenant colonel in charge of science experiments on the Columbia. Anderson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.